A Guardian of Angels
by Living In My Imagination
Summary: Even Angels need Guardians... Set after Fang & CoLS, Jace is suffering the aftershock of the Heavenly Fire and his only relief is the dreams he has of meeting an "Angel" on her first visit to NYC when they were just 14. Now when he needs help the most she's back but with plenty of her own horrors and heartbreak in tow. Can they be each others saving grace, or will it not be enough?
1. Prologue

**A Guardian of Angels**

_Huzzah! New fic... basically all you need to know about _A Guardian of Angels _is it is my first TMI/Maximum Ride crossover which I'm surprised at as I love both series so dearly and while all the chapters are going to be quite short (not all as short as the Prologue, so I'll put the next chapter straight up after this) it's basically the story of a boy whose in desperate need of a guardian angel in a world full of demons and the girl he first believed to be an angel when they met as young teenagers some many years previously... A reunion story! Only with demons, broken hearts, wings and a bunch of trouble... Would love some reviews on this, I have really enjoyed writing it and as I've already got the first six or so chapters done should be regular uploads! (Not that I'm bribing y'all to keep reading)  
_

_Anyway, read on and please let me know what you think/what you'd like to see happen/guesses as to what I'm going to make happen next? Even critisism!_

_-H_

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_Prologue_

"I met this girl once," Jace began quietly and even Isabelle shut up to listen. "She was incredible. The first time we were introduced I thought I was dreaming. I was just a kid, and to me she was my Guardian Angel. I remember everything about that day; I was fourteen, still hating living in a city and not in Idris with Valentine… I was exploring in this neighbourhood where I'd heard that the Conclave had raided the night before. I don't even know why I was so curious now, but it led me to her.  
"I walked into the room and thought I'd walked through a Portal." For a moment he was lost in thought before he said more strongly, "There was just something about her I never could forget. And for almost a year I kept looking for her before eventually I gave up and realised that I'd probably never see her again. That Angels don't exist on Earth… but I never forgot. I felt strong around her, like she had this aura that made me feel like I was right where I was supposed to be." He shrugged and avoided Clary's wide-eyed gaze.  
"What happened?" Isabelle asked, "you just gave up and never saw her again? Cause no offence but that's a shit ending."  
"It's not some story Isabelle. I'm telling you that something in me changed the night I met her."  
Magnus' eyes were shining, "Who knew you were capable of such a philosophical romance? I wonder where she is now…"  
Jace cleared his throat awkwardly, "Actually I do know."  
"How, I thought you said that you stopped looking?" Clary tried to keep the hurt out of her voice.  
"I did, honestly I did. But I didn't have to search for her to know… she's here, in the city. She's come back."  
Isabelle frowned in confusion, "After four years? Why?"  
Jace sighed, "I'm only guessing here, but I already told you. She's a Guardian Angel… she's here to save the world."


	2. Waiting Game

_Also a few **NB: ****Since I originally planned the story for during CoFA and not set after CoLS for the purposes of the plot (and a little for my own emotional state) Magnus and Alec are still together in this story.**_

_-H_

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_Waiting Game_

"I don't understand why we're here Jace." Clary folded her arms over her chest and continued to frown at him.  
Isabelle was tapping her foot impatiently, "Yeah I'm with Clary on this one brother dear. We've been hanging around this damp old building for over an hour, plus I'm almost one hundred percent sure it's about to rain and these boots are new."  
"I didn't ask you to come," he reminded them a little too sharply.  
Isabelle and Clary exchanged a glance, "Uh yes you did," Isabelle argued, "When you announced you were going to stake out an abandoned apartment building in the hope you'd bump into some angel that I'm now almost certain you dreamed up as a kid, and even if you didn't make it up then you're taking a mighty long shot betting that she'll not only remember you and the very place you met that one night, four years ago, but also care enough to believe you might have moronically returned to the very spot to meet her again… that practically cried out "_help me, I'm losing my goddamn mind_!"."  
Despite her rational ranting Jace ignored her and continued to gaze into the night. A few minutes later, as Isabelle had predicted, it began to rain heavily. Clary shrugged up her hood, "Listen Jace, I love you but this is insane. I don't understand how this girl has magically reappeared in your mind or why it means so much to you. I'm going home to dry off and I'll see you at the Institute tomorrow for training, okay?"  
There was something in her voice that made him turn around, "Think I'm crazy if you like but please don't be mad at me. I love you too, you know that." "And yet we've spent an hour and a half waiting in the dark for some other girl."  
"I can't explain it, just like I couldn't explain my love for you when I thought you were my sister, or my angelic abilities or anything that's happened to us since that first night in Pandemonium. It's got to mean something Clary, her showing up in the city just as everything we worked to rebuild is falling apart." "Maybe she's causing it," Isabelle suggested. "Look stay all night if you like but I'm off, you coming Clary?"  
Together they left the narrow street and headed back towards the subway leaving Jace alone in the cold. "I know you're real," he murmured to himself, "I couldn't forget meeting you if I tried and Magnus confirmed it, the sightings aren't false." But after a further hour of hanging around even he began to question the sanity of it all. Frustrated and soaked through he headed for the nearest bar, hoping to find some warmth and a large brandy.  
It was as he turned the corner and crossed over the street he saw a shadow on the wall, barely there at all against the backdrop of rain and the glare of the streetlights. Jace looked up but didn't see anything, only got a face full of rainwater.  
Wondering if he was losing his mind, he made it to the door of the bar and pushed his way inside.  
"What'll it be?" The barman was gruff and to the point.  
Jace ordered his drink in a similar stone cold tone and just before the dour man moved away someone joined him on the tall stools at the bar, the legs scraping along the uneven floor, "Make that a double and I'll have one too." Her voice was so familiar that Jace twisted his neck painfully turning around so quickly.  
"You kept me waiting in the rain," he accused.  
"I got caught up with something and besides you could have probably used the wash."  
She was rain-streaked too and just as beautiful as he remembered with her sheets of dark hair and warm brown eyes. The barman returned with their drinks and she touched her glass to his, "To chance meetings a lifetime ago and whatever comes next."  
He raised his glass to his lips before pausing and commenting, "I didn't peg you for a drinker."  
Max grinned at him and drained the glass in one, "I told you the first time we met Jace, I'm no Angel."


	3. Messenger

_Messenger_

"Where in the name of the Angel is he?!"  
"Isabelle calm down, this is Jace. He's gone wandering for longer than this before," Alec tried to reason her.  
Jace with hadn't shown up for Clary's training session that morning, or for lunch or dinner and now it was growing late. "Yes but he wasn't wandering Alec, he was stalking some weird fantasy dream he had as a kid!"  
Her brother sighed, "How many times… Isabelle I told you that Magnus confirmed it wasn't a dream and that there really is a girl, a whole group, of genetically altered kids out there with wings."  
"So he's out chasing the shadow of a genetic mutant possible killing machine, even better! I honestly don't know what would be worse, finding him in some dive bar delusional because she never showed or-"  
"She actually showed," Alec finished. "In which case you probably shouldn't have left him alone. Thought Magnus did say that these kids have saved the world a fair few times so she's probably not a psycho."  
Isabelle threw her hands in the air, "Oh we're going on "probably not a psycho" now are we, fantastic! 'That Demon _probably _won't rip your insides out and eat them in front of you!', 'Those abandoned subway tunnels _probably _won't be home to giant-'," she broke off as Clary came into the library, visibly distressed.  
"Any news?"  
It was obvious why she was so jumpy, what was everything she and Jace had been through and Isabelle couldn't bring herself to make it any worse by continuing with her own hysteria so instead became very matter of fact, "Nothing. We checked the alley and building where we left him and all his usual sulking haunts but… he'll turn up eventually Clary."  
The Institute doorbell rang loudly then, and with a shared glance between them the three raced for the elevator.  
"Jace wouldn't need to ring the bell," Isabelle said.  
"Maybe he forgot his key?" Alec began before seeing the look on his sister's face and conceding, "Never mind."  
In the next moment they had reached the front doors and Clary was reminded of the horrible night when Raphael had shown up with Simon's body in his arms, she felt her stomach twist with anxiety. Isabelle wrenched them open and all three Shadowhunters felt themselves still with shock.  
It wasn't Jace.  
Instead stood a small, very angelic looking child with large blue eyes and volumes of blond curls. She tried to smile up at the them but the trickle of blood that was making its way from her split lip travelled down her chin and stained the top of her shirt collar. Trembling slightly she said, "Please, he told me I'd be safe here."  
It was then that Isabelle noticed the growing brownish-red stain on the child's side as her hidden wound began to seep through the fabric of her clothes, "Get Magnus," she ordered Alec and stepped forwards in time to catch the child before she fell to her knees on the porch.  
"But Isabelle-"  
"She's not a Shadowhunter so we can't bring the Silent Brothers, now hurry!"  
White-faced her brother pushed past them and hurried into the street, pulling out his phone as he went. Clary touched Isabelle's shoulder and they crouched over the girl, "If she isn't a Shadowhunter Izzy then why-"  
"Who?" Isabelle ignored her and gently stroked the girl's blond curls from her forehead, "Who told you that you'd be safe here?"  
Her voice was so soft that they had to bend down just to catch the words, "Jace- Jace told me to come. He went to find Max." And then she lost consciousness and said no more.


	4. An Angel

_Sorry for the gap in uploading. I did promise not to take forever but I'll be honest I got a new job and then went out celebrating a bit too much, so hangovers finally over with for now and the next chapter! Woo!_

_-H_

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_An Angel_

"Will she live?"  
Mayrse was never one to mince with words and standing over the un-moving form of a child in the infirmary didn't change that, though Isabelle did notice how her mother hid her trembling hands by clutching her elbows the same way that she did. Magnus removed his hand from the girl's forehead and answered, "Yes, she'll live. She lost quite a bit of blood but her blood-type is nothing like I've ever seen. If I'm not mistaken she is either one of, or indeed related to, the girl from Jace's past- the one he called an Angel."  
"But is she actually an Angel?" Alec put in from the other side of the bed.  
Magnus shook his head, "Not from heaven anyway, her DNA has been genetically altered. She is a mutant, and therefore not totally human… I'm not sure how the Clave will handle this case but she is no Mundane and it might be several days before she is strong enough to be moved."  
Isabelle flicked her hair over her shoulder, "Before she passed out she said that it was Jace that told her to come here, and that he had gone after someone called Max."  
"I don't know what that means-"  
"Alec told us that you did research into what we thought were Jace's dreams. It was you who discovered the girl he met was a mutant, the same kind as this girl, don't bullshit us Magnus."  
Mayrse didn't scold her daughter for her language, instead she fixed the Warlock with the same unflinching gaze until he sighed and said, "I have a friend, a Warlock friend, who found himself involved with a Mundane company who specialised in human genetics. With all his experience in the field of science he hoped to be able to assist in the causes for cures of human diseases, but instead he got involved with a branch called Itex. He sent me journals in the years before he went into hiding detailing the kinds of things he witnessed."  
"Why go into hiding?" Alec asked.  
Magnus looked extremely sad, "You fight Demons from the minute you are old enough to hold a serph-blade. Vampires crave blood from their first night. Werewolves are hunters with each moon and the children of Leith and Fey are born knowing that they are part of a world of violence and immortal cruelty… it shouldn't come as a shock to those of us that live forever to see the more feral side of human nature, but something about this company and what they did to their test subjects drove my friend to the point of insanity. His wealth of experience and powers were not put to great use but took him to a place where he witnessed things he deemed too evil for Downworld and the realms of Shadowhunters… it was a world we needn't know of because it only affected Mundanes. He went into hiding to weight out the years, a milenia if he had to, until the company was done with and he could bare to face a new kind of world… possibly ruled by the kinds of species he had helped to create- like this child here. She doesn't feature in his journals as a test subject but as a success story. The human-avian hybrids are a legend among those who delve into the genetics fields. They refused to play the scientists' game and ever since have fought against not only the corrupt genetics labs but corporations involved in sketchy schemes in toxic waste dumping and assisting all the wrong causes on a global scale. They save the world."  
Isabelle's mouth was open, "You're telling us that these kids are part bird and spend their time fighting other mutants in order to stop global warming and terrorism?"  
"That's the gist of it, yes."  
"She looks like eight years old!"  
Magnus' gaze didn't waver and Mayrse put a hand to her forehead, "I have to contact the Clave and let them know that a wounded mutant has appeared on our doorstep."  
"You can't tell them that Jace sent her," Isabelle pleaded.  
"If Jace is involved in this Isabelle there might be no keeping him out of it. The child said that he went after one of the other mutants… if we want to help him if he finds any trouble, we can't begin by lying to the Clave."  
She left the room and Isabelle sank into a chair, "All this because one night as a kid Jace bumps into a mutant and decides to become lifelong friends."  
"Jace hasn't told you the whole story of what happened that night, has he?"  
Both Isabelle and Alec looked up at Magnus sharply, "What do you mean?"  
However Magnus held up his hands and said, "That, my dear, is Jace's story not mine. Now-" he nodded at Clary as she joined them in the infirmary with a selection of take-out from Taki's "as four is far more than a crowd for this poor child's sickbed, I'll take my leave and come back in the morning. If she wakes see what she'll tell you, but be gentle. She might look like an Angel but that doesn't always account for temperament." He touched Alec's chin softly, "Call me if you need anything."


	5. Awake

_Sorry for the slight delay in uploading, I started my new job, almost set my arm on fire and basically have been a little swamped. However excuses over with here is the next chapter, enjoy! And please review :)_

_-H_

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_Awake_

"What's your name?" The injured girl had been awake for almost four minutes but had yet to say a word. Clary timidly held out a cartoon of noodles with a fork and after a moment of staring at it she gingerly accepted and began to eat. Isabelle changed tack thinking that maybe they'd better make the first move, "My name is-"  
"You're Isabelle Lightwood," the girl said in-between mouthfuls of noodles, "And that's your brother Alec and the girl with red hair is Clarissa Fray, though she likes to be called Clary."  
"Uh, yeah… did Jace tell you that?"  
The child shook her head, "He didn't have to."  
Clary and Isabelle exchanged a wide-eyed look and with a sigh the girl put down the empty take-out box and said calmly, "I'm not some kind of freaky demon Isabelle, my name is Angel."  
Clary felt her jaw drop a little and thought, holy shit this kid can read minds or something! And Angel's eyes turned on her, "Actually I can read minds Clary, and you shouldn't worry too much, Jace shouldn't be in any immediate danger."  
Isabelle recovered her voice, "You- you read minds," she repeated faintly, "And you're part bird… is there anything else we have to know?"  
"And what do you mean no immediate danger?" Clary demanded.  
Angel looked tired, "I have lots of skills, we all do, but all different. And Jace was supposed to find Max with me, only we got attacked and he sent me here, he promised he'd just find her and regroup the flock before they did anything else. But if he goes on alone they'll hurt him."  
Obviously she was exhausted from her wound but the three Shadowhunters were practically salivating for information. Isabelle tried to smile, "Listen Angel, we don't know anything about your world, you're going to have to fill us in a little. If you can."  
She reminded her so much of Max, so young, maybe eight or nine? "I'm ten actually," Angel answered, picking at the blankets she was wrapped in. "It's quite hard to explain. You see after we escaped from the School we lived in Colorado and Max looked after us, but then Ari showed up and he was suddenly an Eraser and a bad guy and they took me back to the School so Max and the flock had to rescue me and we ended up here in New York living in the subway tunnels and going to the zoo and they big toy store where a Ouija Board told Max she had to save the world, and then she met Jace and then we freed the kids from the underground place and Max and Ari fought and he turned out to be her brother." Her big blue eyes looked up at them and she asked, "Can I please have some more noodles?"  
"We only have spring rolls left," Alec offered her the box which she happily tucked in to. Isabelle tried to refocus her attention back on the story, "So how long ago was all that Angel?" It sounded massively insane.  
"About four years ago. I know because after New York we thought Ari was dead, only he wasn't and he showed up at hurt Fang really, really badly and we ended up living in Virginia with Ann who turned out not to be FBI but one of the people who ran the School and we tried going to normal school but we were always being hunted and then they replaced Max with an evil clone but we figured it out and had to escape to try and find our real parents." She looked up from another empty carton of food and said, "I'm sorry that you think we got your brother involved in something horrible, but he helped save us last time we were in New York. He gets it, what it's like to be different. Max always says if we need help from someone outside of the flock, only trust Jace. He won't let the School take us back."  
"And what's the School?" Clary asked, afraid of the answer.  
A touch of something darkened her lovely eyes, something along the lines of fear, "It's the lab where we were born," she whispered. "They kept us in dog crates and stuck needles in our arms. Last time we were in New York we broke into one of it's sister labs and freed a bunch of experiments. The flock and Max and Fang and Jace. We broke them all out… no one should have to grow up like that."


End file.
